BROW TIME

It’s time to discuss... *pause for dramatic effect*... ZEE FROWLINE! I mean honestly, it’s abrowt time. I find myself so attracted to full, fluffy brows. Yes, even on the lady kinds. I do love a bit’a’ Cara Delevingne and some Lily Collins ‘ere and there. I’ve got fairly thick brows myself, but they’re pretty wonky. There are big chunks missing from the general structure. I don’t do much plucking these days, other than a few stray hairs. I let my brows grow wild and I shape them by filling them in, rather than taking hairs away. I’d say there are three main things to focus on with brows: colour, shape and setting them in place.

Colour

When it comes to picking the right coloured pencil or powder for your brows, I think most people need an ashy tone. Even if you have warmer toned hair your eyebrows are usually cooler toned. Trying to use a warmer toned brow pencil to help warm up your eyebrows doesn’t really work. Unfortunately it tends to end up looking patchy.

Shape

The first thing I do is grab a brow spoolie and brush the brow hairs out of the way of the area I want to fill in. Then I fill in any particularly sparse areas and try to even out my very differently shaped eyebrows a bit. Pencils are handy because they’re easy to take on the go and you have a lot of control over where you’re putting the colour. The upside of powder is that it’s easier to distribute it through the hair and it’s also easier to achieve a softer effect. Using quite a slim angled brush with it will help to control its placement.

In terms of how much to fill in your brows, I think sometimes less is more. It seems that sometimes people focus so much on getting every little detail perfect with their brows that they end up with a perfectly formed solid block that kind of stops looking like an eyebrow. I know it’s different strokes for different folks, but I like it when brows don’t look perfect. It’s nice to have a bit of skin still visible through your brow hairs. The hardest part of your brow to get looking natural tends to be the front. You really can’t put much product there without it being noticeable. That softer effect that powder has comes in handy here.

Setting Them Thangs

The last thing I do before calling it a day is to brush through the brows with a clear brow gel. I brush the hairs directly up. At first it looks a bit intense, but when they settle back down a bit on their own it leaves you with that sort of appealing, unruly effect. Brushing your brows up also helps to cover some of the filling in you’ve done. This is especially helpful in the front of the brow. If you don’t have clear brow gel you can spray some hairspray onto your spoolie and brush that through.

An Extra Note

For those without an abundance of natural brow, I think the best thing that you can do is not over-fill them.  Although it’s a bummer, trying to get from skinny brows to big bushy brows isn’t always possible. If you focus more on giving your brows texture and bulking up the hairs that you have I think that tends to look more natural. Tinted brow gels are excellent for that. They’re also a nice way to alter the colour of your eyebrows if you so desire. Loads of companies make them now – Benefit, Mac, Anastasia and even Maybelline (though I haven't seen that one in Canada yet).